Essays

Written by Rick Rose

March 29,2026

Taking Stock of Privilege

There is a moment when abundance stops feeling normal and starts feeling like something worth examining. I have three toilets in a home I live in alone. I have two heated garage parking spots and one car. I have a dishwasher, an air fryer, a microwave, three electric blankets for my European feather bed and favorite chairs - one of which is a 240-hand massage chair, something most people will never sit in in a lifetime.

I have 1,800 square feet of living space, three storage closets stuffed full of things I mostly see on holidays - if I even remember to pull them out. I have two walk-in closets and a foyer closet. On a cold morning, my biggest decision is which hoodie in which color, with or without pockets. And on a hot evening, which length of short and what feel of fabric do I choose.

And yet everything that actually matters to me fits in two shoeboxes.

Letters. Notes. Photographs. Small trinkets from people I love and people who have loved me.

No brand name. No price tag. Nothing you could shop for. Just proof that I was known by someone, and that I knew them back. That is the inventory that never lies.

And somewhere between those two shoeboxes chosen from the hundred pairs of shoes I have collected is the question I think about more and more - what is the quiet weight of having too much? It's time I let that thought lead my ways.

February 14,2026

The Burden of Truth, The Benefit of an Oath

There is a weight that comes with an oath. Not the ceremonial kind - words spoken into a room full of people who clap and go home - but the kind that settles into your chest in the quiet moments. As an elected official, I am honored with representing fifteen thousand people. Parents and elders. Newlyweds and animal rights activists. Muslims and Christians. Trans individuals and abolitionists. Workers and those the system has worn down. They did not all agree to agree. They simply agreed to live in the same place - and that place became mine to speak for.

The majority of those voices are silent. Not because they have nothing to say, but because somewhere along the way they decided their voice wasn't worth the risk. So I go looking and listening. And then comes the silent gift: weaving a community of contradictions into something like a unified chord.

Along the way, I have been labeled a racist. A privileged cisgender white man. An attention seeker. Even worse. My mom never wanted her son to get into politics for that reason. I don't hide it when the names come - I go to her. We sit together and work through it, the way we always have. She raised me along with the guidance of G-d. Mom always told us kids that people may dislike what you do, but hate is not something to be valued or played.

You see - and I see - a burden can also be a benefit. The weight of it is proof of the work.

I show up. That is my oath.